M14 Grooves become Ruts

[Lowell]

Riddle me this. I have long noticed that outer lanes on M14 between Northville and Ann Arbor have had what looks like diamond cut grooves at occasional intervals -- three parallel cuts on both sides of the lane. These have now seriously deteriorated, as seen in these pictures I snapped on my way to AA yesterday.

I always speculated that this was some sort of an experiment to keep the road from breaking up. [When M14 was originally built the road quickly cracked apart and had to be completely rebuilt after only 10-15 years of use.]

So, does anyone know the logic behind these grooves? No matter what the reason, it seems they have backfired.
Attachment 641

Attachment 642

[Jman]

I don't know the answer but M-14 ices up if a snow flake falls in Montana. Might have something to do with it.

[jgavrile]

I think the purpose was to be able to get the contract again to re-pave it.
I don't understand why they can't just quit screwing around with the roads and pave them correcttly to begin with?? Its all about graft and money I think. They purposly put inferior concrete down so as to be able to come back in a short while and re-pave it again with more inferior concrete.
A previous thread described how the Davison Freeway was never repaved in all the years since the early 40's when it was made until they re-did it to make it wider. I think that is because they used the correct materials and process to pave it.
Something sure isn't right ,the way that the roads go to hell so fast.??

[Gannon]

It looks like they were trying to encourage a 'keep right unless passing' behavior pattern...especially with the trucks. Those would make quite a noise under eighteen wheels. Cars might not notice, at their wheelbase length! Until they deteriorate, of course.

[jgavrile]

Hell when I first noticed them, I thought some drunk ass had driven onto the concrete with some equipment before the concrete had set properly. I never knew they were put in there intentionally.
Just think how dumb the road commision really is. First, they completely re-pave I-275 and they add some type of texture to the concrete that rattled everyone's teeth out, then they go and grind down the surface and make it even worse. Then they re-pave M14 and screw it up with these dumb ass indents???
Kids could do a better job then they have. Fire all of them ,I say.

[RO_Resident]

It is a dowel bar retrofit. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowel_bar_retrofit)

A lot of concrete pavements are poured as independent panels. However, as traffic volume goes up, the panels may fault over time. [[The faulting typically happens on the upstream side of the joints because of hydraulic pumping.)

If the panels have good structural integrity, one solution is insert metal dowel bars to better transfer the load between the panels. The pavement is then ground down to make it smooth again. Theoretically, you can get a lot more service life out of the pavement without having to rebuild the whole thing.

As you can see in the pictures, the fix wasn't very effective. The grout on M-14 fix failed in short order.

The dowel bar retrofit on the Lodge near the CBD is working much better.

[luckycar]

I drove on this on Tuesday for the first time since 2007.I remember when they put this in,and can't for the life of me think of good reason why they did this.The road,M-14,has been crap since around 1982 when the truckers found out about this shortcut/bypass of I-94.
A good example of a well built road is I696 thru Farmington Hills.They redid this in 1983,and the condition is very good.